3,000 Guitars?

Hi Howard!

As much as we could look at them all day, we keep our more “special” guitars locked away in their cases, far away from dust, the accidental coffee spill or humidity. We have our “working” guitars that are constantly out and about and that we record most things with (like Lisa’s Gretsch, my Epiphone and Ricky for example).

When we are playing around with different sounds in the studio we often get some of the other babies out to see what works best.

As for drums sets, there is our main Ludwig kit (a Ludwig Accent CS Custom Elite) which is not a very fancy kit but it looks and sounds great and has some sturdy hardware which is all we need, as well as an electric Roland TD-12 Kit.

We use the Ludwig for nearly all recordings, so it’s always set and miked up in the studio. I have a small selection of good cymbals and a great heavy hi-hat, so we’ve got pretty much all bases covered.

I’ve still got my cheap budget kit back in Austria that I started playing on but at this point it could fall apart just by looking at it too intensely.

I hope you’re well and send all the best,
Mona

Mona I’m SO glad you use the Ludwigs for recording! I know the newer electronic kits sound pretty good but nothing beats REAL drums! My first real kit was from Pearl. I was a Zildjian cymbal guy myself as well. I tried a Simmons electric kit when they first came out, man did they STINK. They killed your wrists too.

I have 30 fountain pens, but only really make use of 5 or 6 of them for their different uses, and 1 or 2 of them are my pride and joy I use all the time, and might even show off with on occasion.  The rest sit in a nice cherry wood box 24 pen case display shelf to be admired.  There is a law of diminishing returns after about 10 fountain pens.  Acquiring any more did not bring as much joy as the first 5 or 10.

If I had 3000 guitars, it would be similar for me I think.

As for instruments, I have my 25 years old Baldwin upright acoustic piano, and a newly purchased Casio digital piano that is waiting for me, and there is a 30 years old Casio keyboard with a lot of electronic accompaniments that one of my nieces borrowed indefinately.  I haven’t quite reached the law of diminishing returns with pianos yet, so I can see adding a few more as my future piano lessons take off.

I understand how Keith can get 3,000 guitars.  He probably got some of them from the companies for free……Gibson, Fender and other companies will give free ones as gifts to the famous.  He likely got some of the guitars because they were pre-owned by famous past guitarists, and he has some because he likes to collect them.  There is no way he is going to be able to play them all and the shame of it is that the guitars were meant to be played and it is harmful to the guitar if you do not play them.

3,000 sounds like a lot but it is not uncommon for the famous to have an overload of guitars.  I remember seeing an interview of Vince Gill and his “back-room” for guitars was like a walk-in closet with two rows of guitars on each wall.  It was hard to say how many guitars he has.

Hi Howard.  I would highly recommend getting into fountain pens and hand writing in a nice journal.  I work in a sometimes high stress environment, and slowing down, and being able to collect my thoughts by handwriting a plan and a solution in my work note book calms and soothes me and makes me more effective.  I think similar to playing music, writing is another form of expression of your thoughts and feelings and the actual physical act of hand writing, forming the words is more effective than typing on a keyboard.  See my other post in the MLT Merch thread.  I would recommend a LAMY Safari fountain pen to start.  There are a lot of good value quality fountain pens from this brand Lamy, as well as Faber Castell.  Some of the more upscale brands like Pelikan, and Montblanc make some good fountain pens as well.  You will notice they are all German brands.  Cross also makes some good fountain pens too.

Here are my top favorite fountain pens.  These ones are all in sterling silver.

From left to right.  Cross Century 2, Cross Townsend, Yard O Led Viceroy Grand, Montblanc Meisterstuck 146, Cross Apogee.